


Incandescence

by alilactree



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-08 06:39:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11076105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alilactree/pseuds/alilactree
Summary: Just a quick ficlet before season 2b starts





	Incandescence

On Saturday Magnus has space between clients—a miracle, Alec is free—a delight, and the temperature rises above eighty degrees for the first time this year. Magnus makes mint juleps for the joyous occasion, swanning onto the porch with two mint-festooned highball glasses, telling Alec how he learned this recipe when he spent a muggy summer with Tennessee Williams in New Orleans in the 1940s. At the height of his playwriting career, naturally, before the alcohol and bad reviews got the best of Tennessee, or Tenny, as Magnus called him.

Alec takes a glass, the ice tinkling and Alec’s eyebrow raising. “Is that true?”

Magnus sits, settling himself with one leg crossed over the other, drink held aloft as he raises his chin and replies, “Truth! Truth! Everybody keeps hollerin’ about the truth. Well, the truth is as dirty as lies.”

Alec’s forehead gets a little crease in the center like it does when he’s thinking too hard. “Is that from a play?” he finally says.

Magnus smiles and sips his drink.

The temperature is quite pleasant on the porch this afternoon, with enough of a spring breeze to temper the spike in heat. The wind ruffles Alec’s hair forward, caresses down Magnus’s chest where his shirt is unbuttoned to his sternum. The drink is cold in his hand, the sun warm on his face. He looks at Alec—who is sipping his drink and making a face every time—and feels light and happy and relaxed, then hot and restless with desire. Alec looks good today, always does. A black t-shirt pulled tight against those delicious broad shoulders and the wide well-muscled expanse of his chest. Magnus appreciates Alec’s simple sartorial choices; a man who knows what he likes and makes no pretense about it. It’s a nice compliment to Magnus’s own style which is— Well, certainly no one has ever accused Magnus of being simple or austere.

“How are things holding up at the Institute?” Post Soul-Sword things are fairly… catastrophic, in general. But then, when are they not?

Alec grunts, downs the rest of his drink and sets it too-hard on a side table. “You know if they had anybody competent in charge— If they had just— No one even told me until—“ His hands flex restlessly on his thighs, as if searching for something to connect with: a bow and arrow, a seraph, a punching bag, someone’s nose. Magnus reaches across the space between them and offers his hand.

“It wasn’t your fault, Alec.”

He grunts again, looks away. Magnus can’t see his face, but he’s sure the crease is back between his eyebrows. When Alec looks at him again, it’s with a little half-smile. A real one, though his eyes are still heavy with too many burdens. “Can we talk about something else? Or do something else? Jace will probably be here soon to brood some more.”

Magnus chuckles, drains his glass and quips, “It is a great place to brood. Trust me, I would know.”

He comes up for air sometime later with swollen lips and a fully unbuttoned shirt, his mind hazy and with no sense of how much time has passed save for the melted ice and ring of condensation surrounding their glasses. Sometimes he wants Alec so badly it’s like a brushfire, as if he’ll be consumed by it, turned to smoldering ash in the blink of an eye. Sometimes it’s so slow and gentle and sweet, a trickle of honey, a pleasure as light as the spring breeze gently grazing his cheek. He could kiss him forever, just like this, the slide of lips and brush of tongues. He could take him apart, ravage him. He is completely undone, head over heels, madly in love— How terrified he was to realize that, how sure Alec was when he said it first.

“I really like doing that,” Alec confesses in a low, rumbling whisper. Magnus can only laugh. Alec’s face pinches in a scowl. “Don’t you?” He says, voice lilting with uncertainty.

“Oh my darling, you have no idea.”


End file.
